There May Still Be Hope for Medicare and Our Medical Industry

By Jake Jakubuwski

Copyright 2012

       This article is the result of a few posts that I made on Face Book regarding some comments made by some folks whose opinions obivously differed from mine. This is the way I feel I don’t feel entitled to anything except the right to pay my share of the Medicare that I have qualified for by virtue of the fact that I lived to 65 and beyond!

        There is no doubt, or there shouldn’t be, in anyone’s mind that Medicare and this country’s health care system is in trouble and needs help.

       Typically, from the way I see it, the current idea of a quick fix is to raise insurance (government and private) contributions, cut services to new and lower levels and pay providers less money while charging recipients more.

          Before we scuttle our current Medicare/Medicaid/Private Insurance programs, we should try to eliminate fraud, waste and bureaucratic bumbling, fumbling and overall ineptitude that seems to be rife within the system.           Trying to stem improper payments due to fraudulent claims and unscrupulous medical practitioners of all sorts is, to my mind, a solid way to help stop some of the “bleeding” that is taking place within the Medicare system.
           Curtailing services and raising deductibles only, to my mind, penalize those least able to afford those extra costs. Carving “savings” out of Medicare benefits discourages health care providers from participating in the program and although a large number of people look on Medicare as an entitlement — I have to look on it as an “Insurance” program that I pay a premium (Which increases with regularity) for. I have Parts “A” and “B” and pay a private insurance premium to “cover” certain charges (like deductibles and co-pays) that Medicare does not. That premium has also increased regularly — every year. I also pay for “Prescription Insurance” that helps cover the costs of the pharmaceuticals that I require.
          So, I’m really not interested in hearing that my Medicare is an entitlement when I pay for the privilege of participating in a government conceived, government controlled and government sponsored INSURANCE PROGRAM!
         In my opinion anyone who is proven guilty of defrauding the Medicare system should be forced to pay restitution — even if it means losing ALL of their assets. And furthermore, if such a penalty results in their penury, they should NOT be able to seek protection in bankruptcy.
          Eliminating fraud and cutting waste within the boundaries of our current Medicare/Medicaid system is an absolute necessity if the programs are to remain viable…

        Prosecuting the perpetrators of that fraud and forcing them to make restitution is a good start to saving money that is needlessly spent on medical care in the United States.

        Persecuting the poor who can’t pay and penalizing those Medicare recipients who ARE paying their fair share — including all those working-class and middle-class Americans who participate in some sort of personal or employer sponsored insurance program — is counterproductive to resolving the problems that fraud, waste and insane charges for medical care that we are forced to deal with today.

         Maybe socialized medicine is the answer. I don’t know.
          What I do know, or at least what I understand if I’m reading the statistics properly is that in 1906 the average life expectancy in theUS was about 47 years. Today, slightly over 100 years later —it is just over 71 years.

         The way I see it, modern medicine (even with all the scumbag scammers involved and other shortcomings) can’t be doing too bad a job.

         So to all those politicians — and others that favor penalizing folks that ARE paying their share — and those too poor to pay:  I say, “Go get the crooks and MAKE them pay!”

         That includes the management and directors of “Non-Profit” medical facilities who get obscene salaries and bonuses for accumulating hundreds of millions of non-profit dollars in “reserve cash”.